>>56652858Yep. For a lot of us millennials who've been here for years, we had this distinct online/offline split and have had to balance being chronically online with our real lives. We'd go looking out for online spaces to discuss with likeminded individuals, with similar interests. Each community you found was somewhat unique.
Then social media became dominant and society was thrust into being chronically online without a choice. People got filtered into a handful of big websites where they are sorted by algorithms and forced into consuming content whether they look for it or not. Then we had the smart phone revolution, and people became connected permanently, to apps which are designed to keep them picking up their phones and using it again and again. Combining the two has meant that there's no difference between online/offline with a lot of people nowadays and it's one and the same. Different to us in the past who'd have used online pseudonyms and such. The fact that breaking anonymity is seen as an intellectual checkmate these days says it all.
And like you said, all that nazi, commie, and terminally online ideology has filtered into actual society and shit that would have been seen as frienge a deacde ago, is mainstream now. A good example I like to use is incel culture and terminology. I've always found terms like mogging funny, but looksmaxxing, etc. was the reserve of mentally ill faggots. Now all of that is mainstream and used unironically by Gen Z and Alpha, who take it seriously because their online/offline personas are exactly the same.
It also doesn't help that the Internet is basically filled with 'content creators' who want to make money, and need your engagement, so it leads to more and more outlandish and outrageous engagement bait. As with these leaks, I can scroll social media and I'll get a dozen people saying "NEW POKEMON LEAK LORE JUST DROPPED, LET ME TELL YOU WHAT THIS MEANS FOR POKEMON", etc. even if I try to avoid it
